Time for Lunch: The Impact of Lunch Time Constraints on Child Eating Behaviors

Recent peer-reviewed observational evidence suggests that school children receive anywhere from 10-33 minutes of seated lunch time and that students with less time to eat discard higher amounts of milk, entrée (i.e. protein items), grains, and vegetables. This waste is a missed nutritional and food security opportunity and also negatively impacts the environment. The purpose of this study is to estimate the impact that lunch time constraints have on child food selection, consumption and waste behaviors using a crossover trial design, where the duration of seated lunch times are randomly allocated to be either 10 minutes or 20 minutes each day.